The News Channel

Well the News Channel is up on the Nintendo Wii (finally) and I have to say I'm pretty impressed. You can find the news on the network or even globally. You can see a video of it at this link. If you are in demand of the news 24/7 this is for you. Also this adds to the family thing Nintendo has got going on. I don't use it that much other than to look at what happened on a global scale. There are some minor bugs in the load time and it crashes from time to time.

Over all I would give it an 8/10 just because it has some minor bugs.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Wow! What can I say about this game! Well I might as well start off with the bad things and get to the good stuff.

• Bad thing#1: If you just want to learn the ending and skip all the game play, well... good luck because this game clocks in at over a week!
• Bad thing#2: At times the AI for the enemies seems to be lacking unless they're in groups or a boss of some sort.
  

Ok now to the good stuff. Well The Legend of Zelda TP takes place in your standard Hyrule being invaded but this time by a misty force called the TWILIGHT. Your job is to well stop them and save Princess Zelda.

To aid you in your adventure you have Midna. She comes into the story very early to help you as you are wolf. She can:

1. Teleport you when needed
2. Change you into a wolf and back on demand and
3. Tell you helpful hints during game play (kind of like Navi)

Once you pick up this game you will find out how open ended this world is. It is very fun to explore and find little Easter eggs here and there.

TP also uses very cool features on the Wii-mote. You can wave your controller to do a simple slash or you can flick your Nunchuck and do a spin attack. Using your arrows is a simple point and click feature that is very helpful in combat.

Well some of the items in your adventure are remakes from other Zelda games but there are a few new ones COUGH(spinner)COUGH that will help you solve puzzles and find hidden places.

All and all this is a really good game and its completely worth buying a Wii for all on its own.
I give it a 9.9/10

Review: Nintendo Power Magazine Jan 2007

Reviewing: Nintendo Power, Volume 211,

Specs:
$4.99 US, $6.99 CDN
Found at Fred Meyer but not at Albertson's
Cover Feature: Zelda "Stayin' Alive In Hyrule", and "Zelda's creator reflects on Twilight Princess."


I used to have my mom buy copies of Nintendo Power for me in my N64 days, now, because of my interest in the Wii, and because of a power outage (sorry bad pun), I decided to revisit this magazine.



The main reason I bought this magazine was for the eight Wii reviews featured on the teaser bar on the top of the cover, but I was delighted to find lots of cool stories and doodads along the way. For example, do you know what Pikachu's name means? Pokemon has gotten to the point with me that it is not dorky but nostalgic, and there is a short Pokemon manga (Japanese comic) insert. Other goodies I was surprised with was a two-sided poster (modern Zelda on one side, Retro Sonic on the other), and a mini-page-thing of four Wii stickers.

Some things, being me, that I have to warn about is a sexy Tomb Raider ad on the back cover and a couple sexy ads throughout the magazine. However, this is nothing that a folded piece of computer paper and masking tape couldn't fix.

All in all, I enjoyed the reviews and my absolute favorite article was a feature on the yet-to-be-released WarioWare game for the Wii. The article shows the different ways you must hold the Wii Remote to complete the task of particular minigames (the game is essentially a rapid fire of random tasks). Each way to hold it was accompanied by a few screenshots of a couple minigames that requires that controller-holding method. It's worth noting that there is also plenty of content discussing games for the DS (Nintendo's latest handheld), for DS fans, but there's plenty of Wii content too. Basically, if you like either the Wii or the DS or both, it's good. There, I said it.

In conclusion, I'm glad to see Nintendo Power still doin' their thing. This was a great issue, I enjoyed the extra things that came with it, and if it wasn't for the sexy pictures, I would buy a subscription in a heartbeat!